


Falling Slowly

by Anonymous



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Community: makinghugospin, Gen, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-18
Updated: 2013-04-18
Packaged: 2017-12-08 19:43:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/765265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kinkmeme prompt: songs from "Once."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling Slowly

**Author's Note:**

> This is technically a songfic to "Falling Slowly," but I don't think I'm allowed to quote all the lyrics here, so just...look it up yourself and intersperse them between the various sections?

It had been only a couple years since Enjolras had taken to the streets before, and it turned out--somewhat to Combeferre's surprise--that your skills didn't really atrophy much in that time. Certainly not enough for Enjolras to be anything but a leader--a few quick swings of a weapon, a few quicker speeches, and Combeferre had been awed.  
  
He didn't have to explain "no, I was just a student, doing science when you all were balancing the paving stones." It didn't matter. He was a, temporarily, warm-blooded warm body, and that was all that mattered. It wasn't like Enjolras had planned on becoming friends. Not when he didn't really expect to live through the coming weeks.

* * *

"Well?" Enjolras would ask, twitchily.  
  
"Have a drink," Combeferre muttered under his breath.  
  
"What?! I don't--"  
  
"--need me to sound off on your speechmaking abilities. Have a drink, let down your inhibitions--or your standards--and see if the regulars in the bar will hearken to you. It's a better litmus test than I can provide."  
  
"So it was a rubbish speech."  
  
"It was a brilliant speech! But I'm not the one you need to mobilize. For better or for worse, I'm signed on to his revolution of yours, so--"  
  
"It's not  _of mine_. If it's  _of mine_  we've lost the point entirely."  
  
"Okay," said Combeferre. "It was a good speech."  
  
"Are you just looking for an excuse to go drinking?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Because if you want to go drinking--"  
  
"I don't. Actually."  
  
"I'm just saying."  
  
"On second thought, maybe you do need more practice at making speeches."

* * *

  
"They'll come around," said Combeferre, dragging on the end of a parchment.  
  
"They might not!" Enjolras clenched his fists. "People have free will--you or I might have chosen some different path, bided our time longer, struck out more violently. Why not on the larger scale? They might refuse to join with us."  
  
"It is the larger scale that I speak of. Perhaps not today, or this week--"  _Or even in our lifetimes, whatever that might be,_  he seems to indicate with a tilt of his head. "--but eventually, progress will take root."  
  
"So then we are unnecessary."  
  
"Hastening it is a worthy cause! We should not focus on the abstracts of societies to the extent that we lose track of the individuals who are struggling today."  
  
"No," said Enjolras, turning his head to the side, "only to the extent that they let themselves get lost."  
  
Combeferre gave another tug, and the paper sprung free, upsetting the inkwell balanced on top of it as well. Lunging out of his chair, Enjolras dove to catch it; drops of ink spurted from the top, settling on his fingertips, but the well did not spill.  
  
"There we are," said Combeferre, blowing on the paper to dry it; the letters settled into place under his breath. "That's enough for tonight."

* * *

"You can stay the night," Enjolras offered with a glance at the window.  
  
"I--here?" Combeferre asked. The expenses of a guest bed seemed not to have factored into Enjolras' revolutionary budget.  
  
Slowly reading his face, Enjolras said, "Er, I mean, I'll take the floor--"  
  
"No, don't be silly."  
  
"You're going to walk back? At this hour?"  
  
"What's wrong with this hour?"  
  
"There might be criminals, it could be dangerous."  
  
"Oh," said Combeferre, "that's too bad, the last thing I need is dangerous sedition and people contravening Paris law."  
  
Enjolras rolled his eyes. "Just for that, you  _can_  walk back."  
  
"I intend to," said Combeferre, swinging his book bag over his shoulder, "thanks!"

* * *

"Why don't you bring some of your friends to the meetings?" Enjolras asked.  
  
"Are you  _kidding_  me?  _You_  wouldn't be able to stand them talking and joking all the time, we'd never get any work done."  
  
"Oh I don't mean the political ones, I mean, hanging out where people are too drunk to think straight anyway. Just so I can meet them, make more connections, and then you can work on them later."  
  
"No."  
  
"You do... _have_  friends, correct?"  
  
"You're my friends."  
  
"Other people?"  
  
"Oh you're one to talk! Like you've ever had time for people who can barely keep up with you."  
  
"I've been patient, I've tried different things--"  
  
"To get at your goals."  
  
"And I don't like it. If you can strike some balance, find some passion outside of our little assembly, you might be better off for it."  
  
"I have plenty of passions! The living creatures and the turning planet, the shapes of the city and the abstract shapes of mathematics--all of these are bigger than us. And what's more, they don't  _need_  me to be true, or any more beautiful than they are. It's just as well."  
  
"If you change your mind--"  
  
"I'll let you know, and not before."

* * *

Combeferre was rather surprised at how the revolution put itself together, after all. There were other cells, even the École Normale alumni were itching to not be left out. And Enjolras--sometimes in spite of himself--had assembled a collection of hangers-on. There was the lawyer and the doctor and someone's friend and someone's roommate and someone's unwanted admirer but it was another warm body for the time being and...Combeferre lost count.  
  
Which should have been good, as his faculties for counting were otherwise rather high. Still, he couldn't quite quench the pangs of--was that jealousy, that Enjolras could so quickly converse with so many different people? He was nothing special, perhaps, just another indistinguishable recruit, and they probably felt the same way about him. Enjolras could stay on anybody's floor--no, they'd offer him their bed, all of them alike, but Combeferre knew where his lot was thrown in. There was nowhere else to turn.

* * *

Whenever data seemed too predictable, the world too overdetermined, Combeferre left his study behind and took a glance at the colors of Enjolras' world, which changed more quickly than any instrumentation worth calibrating. There was an undercurrent of red just below the surface, itching for an uprising to break out. Then day by day other streaks broke through--a gold he didn't know what to  _do_  with, a blue that reeked of musty patriotism and blind loyalty, a white that beckoned to be filled in with the aftermath of visionary faith. Bits and pieces of purple rubbish, brown kindling, green life like the promise of a world outside that could be trampled on, or perhaps already crushed underfoot.  
  
And then there were the days where Enjolras would hardly talk to him at all, claiming that whatever he felt (in those cases, nothing good) wouldn't matter. Those days Combeferre made a point of grabbing his books and beginning to read whatever was printed there, aloud, with stresses at completely random intervals, pointedly never making eye contact. Were Enjolras truly uncaring--the argument went--he would not get annoyed, and indeed tolerated the first chapter or so of any given tome. By which time he had begun to fume, and so sat until finally the red swaths of his anger fumed up again. Then it was a few curse words, a few threatening taps on Combeferre's part of the spine of the book in his hand, and then, with a roaring energy, they were back to business.

* * *

It would become Enjolras, Combeferre thought, to influence future generations without having to talk to them where they could become distracted by his appearance, the chatter in the room, the smell of wine across the bar. Things would certainly be easier once they were free--out of the in-between state where they lingered, but also free from the possessions tying Enjolras down, the burdens he had stacked upon himself, the compromising company he kept. Combeferre at least could tell himself that if it wasn't revolution it would be something else, something all-encompassing he could never live to see the end of, and that would be blessing as much as curse.  
  
Sometimes he was jealous of  _Enjolras_ , for that; he'd have it the easiest, afterwards. But then there would be those silent thrills when Enjolras treated him as an equal, not bothering to glance at him in his half-hearted goodnights, telling people to really go home and sleep on things and not come back if they didn't want to, just for the spark of kinship when they all came wandering back anyway. For whatever reason, death was not just something to take or leave, but a wrapping up of all the ends, loose and overbound alike.

* * *

  
"Why are we doing this?" Combeferre called for the  _n_ th time as Enjolras rounded another corner.  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"You don't  _know_?"  
  
"I don't know why 'we,' plural, are doing anything. Your choices are your own."  
  
"Supposing I just enjoy the pleasure of your company," Combeferre panted, "why are  _you_  doing this?"  
  
Building strength was all well and good, he supposed, but it wasn't like either of them were planning to outrun the national guard on a merry chase. They swerved by another narrow alley, cutting across an intersection at a diagonal and carrying on through the daylight. "Want to get another view of the city," said Enjolras, "everyone has their own--areas, different organizers. Get a sense of who we're--"  _Fighting for_ , Combeferre mentally finished, as Enjolras muttered something about "all together with."  
  
The rest of Paris, for their part, was flitting past too quickly to take much notice of. Perhaps more fortunately, nobody was taking much notice of  _them_ , just two friends out for a run. "Next time, you could look at a map."  
  
"I can't look at a map, maps have got too many streets on them."  
  
" _Street signs_  have got too many streets on them!"  
  
"Well, then, you can head back, I'm not making you stay."  
  
"No I can't, we're already closer to--going around in a loop or what have you, I can stick it out."  
  
So, of course, the next time Enjolras sprawled open a map, commandeering people's wineglasses to hold down the corners and using little markers to denote his fellow leaders spread out through the city, Combeferre had to give him a hard time of it. By the time after that, Enjolras had wised up, and pretended to make a great show of orienting it, staring at "Paris, 1831" as if needing to figure out when he fit into the great timespan of revolutionary history.  
  
Or maybe, Combeferre thought at another glance, he wasn't pretending at all.

* * *

  
"Combeferre? Hey. Hey! Wake up."  
  
Combeferre jolted awake, twitching and blinking the dust in his eyes, leaning his head on his arm. "Wh...what?"  
  
"Everyone's left. How long have you been asleep?"  
  
"I don't know, am I a mechanical clock? Courfeyrac was saying that Lamarque isn't half bad, as generals go..."  
  
Enjolras sighed. "You do look exhausted. Let's get you home."  
  
"I'm all right."  
  
"You look exhausted, next time you might as well skip--it wasn't like we were going over anything you didn't know."  
  
"Might as well."  
  
"Do I want to know what you were doing last night?"  
  
"Homework. Where 'last night' includes a respectable proportion of 'this morning'."  
  
"...I'll take that as a 'no.'"  
  
"It was an interesting project! I just--should have started earlier, realized how much I'd get into it."  
  
"You, not realizing that you'd get into a project? What's come over you?"  
  
Enjolras had been teasing, but Combeferre blushed deeply, not looking up as he said "some kind of flag, I suppose."  
  
And when Combeferre brought up his coming assignments, offhand, Enjolras made a point of not mentioning when the next meeting was scheduled. He gave some talks and Courfeyrac made some suggestions and quantities of alcohol were consumed, and Combeferre read an entire book in one night and never knew the difference.

* * *

The edgier everyone felt, the less they had to say, and the less they had to say, the closer Combeferre felt to all the others. No longer was there jealousy, only the good fortune that they'd found each other (it was easier to ignore all the things they might have been, otherwise), and a marvelling that they could echo each other's anthems, every voice fitting in.  
  
Even Enjolras was changed, and not for the worse, varying his accent as he approached one comrade or another. Courfeyrac, who'd always been more adept at that sort of thing, gave him a "took you long enough." And Combeferre was willing to slip out of his patterns, visit the other groups. There were not enough to give birth to false hope, but just enough to inspire. They all were equal, deserving a chance to live or a chance to die alike--no need for weighted harmonies, just the joining of peers together.

* * *

He might as well wait around, Combeferre decided; heaven in its distant beauty knew there would be time enough for fighting, soon, and not enough room to practice.  
  
"Go to sleep," he called, "you fight better with a good night's rest."  
  
"You don't know that," Enjolras stated bluntly.  
  
"I'm formulating a hypothesis."  
  
"Don't you need more trials for that?"  
  
"I have faith. And so much the better, that we don't have to go through this more than once."  
  
"Do you think," Enjolras said after a pause, "that if we did run an experiment, watch the world get set up and upset time and time again, we'd ever have met?"  
  
Combeferre stalled for time, glancing around for other blurry faces, but their friends had managed to fall asleep. "It doesn't matter," he finally said, "you know that's a silly question. Time only moves the one way."  
  
And when at last time cut them free, they could perhaps see a bigger picture. Or perhaps there would be so much more to see that they wouldn't have to, because nothing could add to how far they'd already come.


End file.
